This week's Sunday Song is a pun-tastic tribute to next summer's potential referendum.
The voting system in place for seats in the House of Commons is a historical anomaly. Since the announcement earlier this week of intent to change it to a more proportional - the parties have been quick out the blocks to denounce a move to more proportional votes. Why? In part because behind this will sit a constituency boundary change (again!) which could disempower labour and empower the tories.
For readers yet to be convinced about the merits of a more proportional voting system - lets look at this chart from the BBC Election 2010 site outlining total number of votes cast v seats gained (for full chart click here )
| Party | Seats | Gain | Loss | Net | Votes | % | +/-% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 307 | 100 | 3 | +97 | 10,726,614 | 36.1 | +3.8 |
| Labour | 258 | 3 | 94 | -91 | 8,609,527 | 29.0 | -6.2 |
| Liberal Democrat | 57 | 8 | 13 | -5 | 6,836,824 | 23.0 | +1.0 |
Once you get over the fact that around 4 million people voted for other parties that didn't gain seats, here are some ratios*
- For a Conservative seat an average of 34, 940 votes
- For a Labour seat an average of 33,370 votes required
- For a Liberal Democrat seat an average of 119, 994 votes required
This is clearly not fair and not representative.
Take Care Y'All
John
*Figures gained via dividing seats by votes- this is a simple tool and not a true reflection of seats as that would require going seat by seat etc)
